Girl with Pen in New York Times blog today! In response to questions I’ve been getting, there ARE a few slots left in my “Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade” webinar this fall. Please see this post and this one for more.
blogging life
Inspired by Alex Juhasz (who is currently teaching a course on YouTube about YouTube), I’ve decided to teach my fall webinar “Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade” as a bloginar. Meaning, the online part of the class will take place as–you guessed it–a blog.
What better way to learn about using the blogosphere as a platform for your books than by becoming more familiar with a blog, right?
So the class blog–private, of course!–will provide a forum where participants can post elements of their book proposals, or thoughts toward ideas, as we go along. And get feedback. I’ll be walking participants through the mechanics on our first conference call (that would be Nov 6). We’ve got some great NYC-based agents and editors lined up for the calls. And while I’m at it, and for those of you who like to get ahead (you know who you are), the suggested reading for the course will be from: Thinking like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published. More info–dates, cost, rationale–here.
I think Marco took this (goofy) pic of me the day I got my current laptop. Boy, do I love me my MacBook.
My HuffPo po is now live, here. Please check it out, and comment away! I’ll be responding over there later today.
Moved by Naomi Wolf’s talk on The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot on Friday at Labyrinth, and having finished Susan Faludi’s Terror Dreams yesterday, today I wrote a post on them both that should go live in the politics section of HuffPo tomorrow.
If you like it, please click “I’m a fan of this blogger” (or whatever that button says) and post comments!
So as promised, I’m occasionally posting readers’ questions (and my answers!) about the intersections of feminist blogging, scholarship, and journalism here.
Q: I’ve been working on an essay I’m thinking about posting, but it’s also one that I want to try and get published once I’ve had a chance to do some more research and polishing. In your experience, does publishing a portion or draft of a piece on a blog make it difficult to get that piece published in a scholarly journal later on?
GWP: I sometimes use blogging as a way to think through ideas I am writing about for publication elsewhere. More often, I’ll do a post around links that I want to return to and mull over for a piece I’m working on. But here’s the thing: When I rework an idea I’ve blogged about for the purposes of publication (ie, the non-blog variety), I will word the idea very differently. My blog voice is much more off-the-cuff and this-just-in sounding than anything I would write for a magazine or journal. Scholarly journals, like magazines, generally want proprietary content. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do a post around an idea that’s part of an article you are submitting elsewhere. I would argue against posting a large portion (ie more than 500 words) of something you will repurpose verbatim — both because the publication may not favor that and because you don’t want to be plagarized before you’ve published in the journal. But if you do decide to post a portion, I suggest being up front about it when you submit the article to the journal. Does anyone have additional thoughts, or experiences around this issue to share?
I’m late to posting today (meetings, meetings!) but I’ve got a good one for you. My friend Marci Alboher, author of the book pictured left, has launched a blog called Shifting Careers over at the New York Times. The tagline of the blog? “Smart thinking at work.” With Marci behind it, smart it will be for sure. Heck, already is. Check out this post, on why the best-places-to-work for women lists matters. Or this one, on what Marci did when the Times designed a logo for her featuring a man. Or this one, on her writing mentor Susan Shapiro and how to be a good mentee. See what I’m sayin? This blog has become my new must-read. Do check it out, and if you like it, post comments and send Marci some love.
Bonnie Erbe recently hosted a roundtable on feminism and Gen Y on PBS’s To the Contrary. Over at feministing.com, Gen Y feminist Ann Friedman responds to the charge that Gen Y is not a movement generation, noting that the online feminist community is where it’s at:
I think if the online feminist community has proved anything, it’s that we are a movement generation. I participated in feminist actions on my college campus, but that felt more like a club than a movement. I worked for a women’s rights nonprofit, but that felt more like a day job than a movement. I went to rallies and marches, but they felt more like one-off events than a movement. It took blogging here, and being part of a community of feminist bloggers, for me to really feel like part of a feminist movement. To feel I was part of a group of people, committed to a set of ideals, who are working day in and day out to advance those ideals.
So my question then is: When does a virtual movement become “real” in the eyes of those who have, in the past, done activism differently? Because it’s not just about getting young women involved in feminism. It’s about getting feminist organizations involved in online.
Scroll down here to see the video or just listen to the audio.
(I hear that a To the Contrary episode with clips from me and Jessica Valenti aired recently, but I can’t seem to find the link! If anyone has seen it, please let me know? And shoot me the link? Many thanks.)
Well, at least it’s not a “catfight” (hehe). Turns out the American Association of University Professors just shut down their listserv because folks couldn’t play nicely with each other. (Read about it here, in Inside Higher Ed)
Over at MediaCommons, Clancy Ratliff offers a montage of visual representations of “The Internet Regression” (which is the cleverish name of an essay describing internet users’ tendencies to exhibit extreme rudeness and/or kindness.) Says Clancy,
I believe many scholars hear “online publishing†and think of [images of obstinate blowhard conversation — like the one pictured above]. It may take a lot of counterexamples to dislodge those prejudices, especially since the behavior that prompts the prejudices still occurs all over the net every day.
Ok ok. Full disclosure: This post began as an excuse to post the picture, which looks remarkably like, but is not, my cat. (But for the record, I am NOT cat blogging. Um, yet.
Ok – last one, then I really have to hit the road. I’m just too jazzed not to share this. Remember Melinda Parrish (pictured), the Guest Scholar Blogger who posted a most excellent post here the other week, titled “Sex Does Not Define Us” ? After posting here, she got inspired to start her own blog! It’s called Girl Sailor. As Melinda describes it, “I am a female Ensign on Active Duty in the US Navy, and these are my thoughts.” Says Melinda, “I graduated in May from the United States Naval Academy. My time in the military has caused me to question how my role as an Officer and my identity as a postmodern woman should coincide.” She begins the blog with an INCREDIBLE manifesto, called “The F-Word,” which I cannot wait to finish reading when I get off the plane.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Melinda. I absolutely can’t wait to read your thoughts.
Inspired by Alex Juhasz (who is currently teaching a course on YouTube about YouTube), I’ve decided to teach my fall webinar “Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade” as a bloginar. Meaning, the online part of the class will take place as–you guessed it–a blog.
What better way to learn about using the blogosphere as a platform for your books than by becoming more familiar with a blog, right?
So the class blog–private, of course!–will provide a forum where participants can post elements of their book proposals, or thoughts toward ideas, as we go along. And get feedback. I’ll be walking participants through the mechanics on our first conference call (that would be Nov 6). We’ve got some great NYC-based agents and editors lined up for the calls. And while I’m at it, and for those of you who like to get ahead (you know who you are), the suggested reading for the course will be from: Thinking like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published. More info–dates, cost, rationale–here.
I think Marco took this (goofy) pic of me the day I got my current laptop. Boy, do I love me my MacBook.
My HuffPo po is now live, here. Please check it out, and comment away! I’ll be responding over there later today.
Moved by Naomi Wolf’s talk on The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot on Friday at Labyrinth, and having finished Susan Faludi’s Terror Dreams yesterday, today I wrote a post on them both that should go live in the politics section of HuffPo tomorrow.
If you like it, please click “I’m a fan of this blogger” (or whatever that button says) and post comments!
So as promised, I’m occasionally posting readers’ questions (and my answers!) about the intersections of feminist blogging, scholarship, and journalism here.
Q: I’ve been working on an essay I’m thinking about posting, but it’s also one that I want to try and get published once I’ve had a chance to do some more research and polishing. In your experience, does publishing a portion or draft of a piece on a blog make it difficult to get that piece published in a scholarly journal later on?
GWP: I sometimes use blogging as a way to think through ideas I am writing about for publication elsewhere. More often, I’ll do a post around links that I want to return to and mull over for a piece I’m working on. But here’s the thing: When I rework an idea I’ve blogged about for the purposes of publication (ie, the non-blog variety), I will word the idea very differently. My blog voice is much more off-the-cuff and this-just-in sounding than anything I would write for a magazine or journal. Scholarly journals, like magazines, generally want proprietary content. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do a post around an idea that’s part of an article you are submitting elsewhere. I would argue against posting a large portion (ie more than 500 words) of something you will repurpose verbatim — both because the publication may not favor that and because you don’t want to be plagarized before you’ve published in the journal. But if you do decide to post a portion, I suggest being up front about it when you submit the article to the journal. Does anyone have additional thoughts, or experiences around this issue to share?
I’m late to posting today (meetings, meetings!) but I’ve got a good one for you. My friend Marci Alboher, author of the book pictured left, has launched a blog called Shifting Careers over at the New York Times. The tagline of the blog? “Smart thinking at work.” With Marci behind it, smart it will be for sure. Heck, already is. Check out this post, on why the best-places-to-work for women lists matters. Or this one, on what Marci did when the Times designed a logo for her featuring a man. Or this one, on her writing mentor Susan Shapiro and how to be a good mentee. See what I’m sayin? This blog has become my new must-read. Do check it out, and if you like it, post comments and send Marci some love.
Bonnie Erbe recently hosted a roundtable on feminism and Gen Y on PBS’s To the Contrary. Over at feministing.com, Gen Y feminist Ann Friedman responds to the charge that Gen Y is not a movement generation, noting that the online feminist community is where it’s at:
I think if the online feminist community has proved anything, it’s that we are a movement generation. I participated in feminist actions on my college campus, but that felt more like a club than a movement. I worked for a women’s rights nonprofit, but that felt more like a day job than a movement. I went to rallies and marches, but they felt more like one-off events than a movement. It took blogging here, and being part of a community of feminist bloggers, for me to really feel like part of a feminist movement. To feel I was part of a group of people, committed to a set of ideals, who are working day in and day out to advance those ideals.
So my question then is: When does a virtual movement become “real” in the eyes of those who have, in the past, done activism differently? Because it’s not just about getting young women involved in feminism. It’s about getting feminist organizations involved in online.
Scroll down here to see the video or just listen to the audio.
(I hear that a To the Contrary episode with clips from me and Jessica Valenti aired recently, but I can’t seem to find the link! If anyone has seen it, please let me know? And shoot me the link? Many thanks.)
Well, at least it’s not a “catfight” (hehe). Turns out the American Association of University Professors just shut down their listserv because folks couldn’t play nicely with each other. (Read about it here, in Inside Higher Ed)
Over at MediaCommons, Clancy Ratliff offers a montage of visual representations of “The Internet Regression” (which is the cleverish name of an essay describing internet users’ tendencies to exhibit extreme rudeness and/or kindness.) Says Clancy,
I believe many scholars hear “online publishing†and think of [images of obstinate blowhard conversation — like the one pictured above]. It may take a lot of counterexamples to dislodge those prejudices, especially since the behavior that prompts the prejudices still occurs all over the net every day.
Ok ok. Full disclosure: This post began as an excuse to post the picture, which looks remarkably like, but is not, my cat. (But for the record, I am NOT cat blogging. Um, yet.
Ok – last one, then I really have to hit the road. I’m just too jazzed not to share this. Remember Melinda Parrish (pictured), the Guest Scholar Blogger who posted a most excellent post here the other week, titled “Sex Does Not Define Us” ? After posting here, she got inspired to start her own blog! It’s called Girl Sailor. As Melinda describes it, “I am a female Ensign on Active Duty in the US Navy, and these are my thoughts.” Says Melinda, “I graduated in May from the United States Naval Academy. My time in the military has caused me to question how my role as an Officer and my identity as a postmodern woman should coincide.” She begins the blog with an INCREDIBLE manifesto, called “The F-Word,” which I cannot wait to finish reading when I get off the plane.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Melinda. I absolutely can’t wait to read your thoughts.
